If you insist Jason. 😛 Bad code can be judged on many levels (some of which previous posters have alluded to):

- Doesn't meet the functional requirements

- Generally meets the functional requirements but is riddled with defects when it reaches UAT (and/or SIT).

- Isn't fast

- Isn't pretty (Make it Work, Make it Fast, Make it Pretty[/url])

- Is unmaintainable (for some of the reasons mentioned above)

- Is not extensible (but not too extensible so as to be developed out-of-budget)

- Doesn't have full functional coverage. For example, perhaps the development team didn't want to add a "delete transaction" button because that would have been too difficult, so instead the package comes with a support contract that allows for those cases where a delete is required but handled by "painstaking" analysis/scripting

IMHO, a lot of this comes out of two issues:

- Software engineering (a somewhat laughable term, again IMHO) has yet to achieve the level of maturity that other engineering disciplines have long ago achieved, despite 40+ years of practitioning.

- Instruction in software development, usually in a university or possibly a company specializing in training, is rarely conducted by expert software developers. "Those that can do, those that can't teach."

Now you see why I suggested you don't get me started.